The thrust on chemical-free cultivation of vegetables that started as an experiment in the 90s has now evolved into a culture in Kerala's Kanjikkuzhi Gram Panchayat.
P N Venugopal traces the growth and success of this initiative so far.

The recommendations of the committee constituted to look into the claims of endosulfan victims in Kasargod and decide on the need to set up a tribunal to settle those, appear to be largely sympathetic towards the Plantation Corporation and endosulfan manufacturers. PN Venugopal reports.

Keralaâs example of palliative care has won global recognition and the 'World Health Organisation' is promoting it as a model for developing countries. But can this model work in other parts of the country?
M Suchitra
reports.

27-year-old Ratnamma, a garment factory worker, was forced to deliver a baby on the streets of Bangalore. 20-year-old Gayathri was run over by the bus belonging to the Bangalore garment factory where she worked. Garment workers in Bangalore are caught in an exploitative web, reports
Padmalatha Ravi.

Dr Yehuda Kovesh
from Melbourne, Australia is a Consultant Endocrinologist to the UmonHon among other tribes as well as Visiting Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of Havana, Cuba. While on an Indian tour early this month, he visited the Athirappilly waterfall, 70 kms from Kochi. It is his experience with the Adivasis of the near by Vazhachal forest area.

Crores of taxpayer rupees are spent by government institutes each year on fisheries technology and research. How much does this impact the lives of the average fish hawkers who vend on foot? Is there any impact at all?
M Suchitra visited one Kerala hawker, at a coastal village near Kochi.

Are they members of a Church without caste hierarchy, or are they still Dalits, with all that
it implies in Hinduism? Dalit Christians find that despite being a numerical majority in the
faith in India, the promise of equality is as distant as before. They're taking their protests
to Parliament this winter, reports Padmalatha Ravi

Resonating with the sound of pattering feet of the students on the wooden stairs and heated discussions on Beethoven, Brecht or Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, for hours over a cup of coffee, smoke from the endless number of cigarettes spiralling up to the ceiling high enough to contain at least three stories of present multi-storied buildings and a floor area to match its majestic columns, waiters in traditional uniform of spotless white and red and high, stiff hats, mixed aroma of coffee, fish fry and mutton Afghani and animated conversation between people whose ages are removed from each other by a decade â the same sights and sounds beckoned from every nook and corner. Strictly opposed to change, Kolkata's Coffee House continues to be a sure-fire draw, reports
Kasturi Basu

From misguided attempts at prohibition and moral policing to scams in higher education and declining development, things in Kerala have been taking a rather sordid turn and hitting headlines for all the wrong reasons. PN Venugopalrecapitulates some of the most recent developments.

A 12-member task force has recommended to make elephant a National heritage Animal and to impose strict restrictions on trapping, taming, buying selling and transporting elephants. Elephants may not be available for temple festivals as of yore. However, animal rights groups are all in praise for the MoEF's initiative to end cruelty towards elephants.
M Suchitra reports.

Six women reporters of 'Malayala Manorama' daily, travelled across Kerala state unescorted, to experience at first-hand the safety and security that Godâs Own Country was offering them.
Sreedevi Jacob reports.

Though numerous attempts have been made to rehabilitate sex workers across India,
not many have succeeded. Here is a success story on the rehabilitation of sex
workers in the town of Muvattupuzha, Kerala Sandhya Mary reports.

Despite crores of rupees having been spent in name of tribal and other development programmes in one block of Palakkad district in Kerala, the region suffers from poor access to decent health care. 80 per cent of the adivasi population here are living in abject poverty. M Suchitra reports.

is an independent
media initiative based in Kochi, India.
It is an outcome of the concern felt by a group of journalists ...